Posted in Reviews

Originally posted May 2006

 

One of the things I enjoy about homeschooling is the opportunity to do stuff I never got to do as a child.  I have to admit, the Antworks ant farm is one of those things.  

 

I justify this by remembering that my enthusiasm for learning or doing something new will be noticed by my six year old daughter, and that's a great thing to teach her.

 

That said, ants give me the heebie-geebies most of the time.  However, they are fascinating creatures and this seemed like a great way to study them. 

 

Antworks is an acrylic container, about 3/4 inches wide, filled nearly to the top with a solid gel.  The gel is the key. 

 

Developed by NASA to allow astronauts to carry tunnel-building insects into space, the gel is stationary within the "tank," so the Antworks farm can be carried or moved as needed.  The gel provides the perfect nourishment for the ants, plus it is also the tunneling medium. 

 

The best thing is that the gel is a clear blue, so you can see the ants' tunnels as they develop.  We've measured the tunnels, guessed where they might tunnel next, and watched with fascination as the ants pulled really large pieces of gel to the surface.

 

The lid of the container fits solidly, so there are no escapees!  You need only open the lid occasionally to let in fresh air, but there are very small air holes in the lid as well. 

 

You may also need to remove the occasional dead body, which the ants bring to the surface from the tunnels.  Once our colony was "established," we haven't had to do this very often.

 

The kit comes with a certificate to purchase harvester ants by mail.  We, however, chose to collect our own ants.  This, in itself, was the first learning step with this project - determining what ants were native to our area and would be large enough to observe easily. 

 

We discovered that the only ant large enough to not escape the tank (via the air holes) were carpenter ants.  They have been an excellent choice.  Their mandibles (mouth parts) are large enough to see them work, they began digging tunnels within a few hours, and they are relatively hardy.

 

Overall, we've been extremely pleased with this product and have already had many hours of enjoyment through using it. 

 

Added 5-28-06: We discovered the "ideal" way to add ants to our Antworks today.  You just need them to "chill" so they don't scurry everywhere when you open the tank.

 

We capture ants by putting baby food jars over them, then sliding thin cardboard underneath the opening.  Then we put the Antworks in the refrigerator, along with the new captures in their individual jars, for about 20 minutes.

 

After their brief chill session, the ants are semi-dormant and don't scurry around much at all.  We put five ants in the tank today in less than 2 minutes, with no escapees or hassles.  Thus far, everything in the tank looks good after their brief cooling session.

 

Added 6-28-06 - a photo!

 

 

This is the Antworks in our home after a couple of weeks.  The ants have added a few new tunnels since this photo and widened most of the ones you see here.  This has been so much fun!

 

August 7, 2006

 

Well, we've hit some snafus with the Antworks.  We're not entirely sure what happened, but we've conjectured that when the tunnels became extremely deep in the gel - and one-directional at that - air flow became and issue. 

 

The tank does have two very small air holes at the top.  The directions say to remove the lid once a week to allow fresher air into the tank.  However, once the ants tunnelled to the bottom, I don't think once a week was often enough.  Probably once each day or two was more reasonable.

 

At any rate, after leaving the tank unopened for a week, we had a huge ant extermination.  New ants placed in the tank simply didn't choose to "cope" with the quantities of dead bodies at the bottom and, unfortunately do not have a great survival rate in there.  But, in itself, that problem created a new issue - mold.  The dead bodies decayed and are molding in the chambers in more than one place.

 

Interestingly, the mold and accompanying decay are also turning the gel a gold color.  We're not sure what's causing this, unless it's acid released by the decaying ants that is making this change.

 

Also, we've discovered that the ants need a "motivator" ant - someone willing to set the example to do the work.  If the motivated worker ant dies, the rest seem to lapse into a torpor and do very little. 

 

All this said, we will continue with our experiment, possibly purchasing a new tank after Labor Day in order to have a fresh supply of ants and tunnels for my daughter's science experiment.  We will make a point of opening the tank daily though for fresh air.  And, I've taken to "fanning" the tank in order to circulate air through the tunnels.